Efforts to reform the state’s oversight of the oil and gas business in Colorado should strike a balance, as people on both sides of the issue would acknowledge. The needs of the industry must properly accommodate the health of the environment, wildlife and people.
Unfortunately, for years the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has tipped the scales in favor of the producers.
We watched with interest Monday when a state Senate committee voted unanimously to pass a compromise House Bill 1341 in an effort to restore balance to state oversight.
We urge the full legislature to get behind it. The amended bill would change the size and makeup of the commission and give it express authority to protect the public health, safety, welfare, wildlife and the environment. It also would clarify that the provision for “waste” in current law will pertain largely to pooling arrangements (or, the equitable division of a pool of mineral resources by multiple rights holders) and not to any action taken by the commission to protect the public health, environment and wildlife resources.
The compromise was hammered out among industry officials, lawmakers and the Ritter administration, which is pushing for the change. Industry officials made it clear they didn’t like the changes but agreed not to fight them as long as the new legislation doesn’t throw out the waste definition, which an original version of HB 1341 did.
Current law prohibits the “evils of waste in the production and utilization of oil and gas” and says production must be “consistent with protection of public health, safety and welfare.” Even so, critics say the waste provision has been abused to frustrate efforts to protect health and environment.
Under HB 1341, the commission would grow from seven to nine members. Three would be industry experts, down from the current five. Four would represent local government, wildlife, agriculture and soil reclamation. Two members would represent the state departments of Natural Resources and Public Health and Environment.
Two members of the current Oil and Gas Commission have terms that expire July 1. One of them, vice chairman Brian Cree, resigned on Monday, expressing disappointment that Gov. Bill Ritter had not responded to a request to meet.
During testimony before the Senate State Affairs Committee, two other members of the commission and a former commissioner argued against what one called the “dumbing down” of the commission. We have a different view: We see the changes as a “wising up” of state oversight.
